Jesus Flores suffers another setback, to halt throwing program for three days

Jesus Flores's long, frustrating recovery from a shoulder injury included another setback this week. General Manager Mike Rizzo announced after Saturday's 10-5 loss to the San Francisco Giants that the Nationals' catcher's throwing program will be shut down for three days and will continue after the all-star break.

"Dr. Andrews said everything's clean and he feels pain, and that's why we're going in the cautious route," Rizzo said. "Shut him down so the pain goes away, ramp him back up again and see what happens."

Flores has not yet played this season. He first suffered the shoulder injury in a collIsion last May.

I just heard on Baseball Tonight that the Brewers are willing to listen to offers for Prince Fielder... I assume it has to do with money because he wants more money than Ryan Howard's 5 year $125 mil contract... Furthermore, he is a Scott Boras client... Texiera (offer), Strasburg, Harper, etc... see where I'm going here.

How about trading Adam Dunn & parts for Prince Fielder... If they were game, they would be getting a clean-up hitter back that would be much more affordable, unless they have a guy in their system... Fielder is only 26 years old & if we were going to give Tex $160 million, why not $130 - $150 million for him?

My guess, they wouldn't want Adam Dunn with pending FA, but according to Buster Olney 4 years $48 mil could get it done... that sure is cheaper than Fielder.

I wish Jesus well, but the real question is what else can be done for him? Like the old joke - Doctor, it hurts when I raise my arm, and the doctor says 'Don't raise your arm'. Flores is seeing the best orthopedist for sports injuries there is - and I know he's young, but when is enough, enough? When is he no longer the catcher of the future but sadly, the catcher of the past?

As for the above Fielder comment, I think Mike Rizzo wants to see about Adrian Gonzalez Rocking the Red next year. I know I sure wouldn't mind that....

Well last night was a perfect example of why Riggleman should not be in the future plans of this team,you bring in Clippard who has been horrible lately in a tight game situation,Tyler clearly has issues yet Riggs goes to him with the game on the line. The starting pitching is a joke sans Livo and "the Kid", McCatty needs to go because i don't see these guy's getting better starter's or relievers, opposing hitters figure us out usually after one or two times through the lineup bottom line the second half doesn't look to promosing.

I once heard Tommy Lasorda say that in a 162-game season you're bound to win 54 games no matter what and bound to lose 54 games no matter what. The verdict on the season is what happens with the remaining 54 games. We were bound to win Friday night the way the Nats played. We were bound to lose last night based on the way we played. The series comes down to this afternoon. Win the game, win the series. The Nats aren't as good as they looked early on. They aren't as bad as they have looked recently. It's a long season. Let's play 'em all and see what happens. Keep this in mind, though--the Nats are much improved and making progress.

Now if Dunn could just spread them out a little and hit them with men on bases we just might have an All Star. Posted by: bobilly2 | July 10, 2010 6:47 PM |

Hey Billy Bob,

While you are at it, please tell Nyjer and others to get on base more often.

If Dunn goes, the Nats will have few baserunners plus fewer ways to get the ones they do have home. What a combo! And the legit players the Nats have on the team will begin looking for better franchises to link up with in the future, those franchises committed to building winners.

fpcsteve, indeed. As a matter of fact, the other day I happened to look up our 2009 W-L record at this stage.* I believe that this point last year we were 26-62, as opposed to 39-49 now. The Orioles, fwiw, are 28-59.

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*Schadenfreude stat check in preparation for dinner with a friend who had attended the Nats at O's series at Camden this year and cheered for the O's. He was on a date and the girl was an O's fan. Yeah. Uh-huh. Nice alibi. Whatever. Cut to last night's dinner. Him in re. SS and the #1 pick: "Yeah, too bad he's a pitcher without a team." Me: "Speaking of not having a team, let me just run some stats by you." Oh, yeah. We had a very enjoyable dinnertime chat last night... :-)

I'm in agreement with dargreg's basic premises, that Riggleman has shown over the past weeks that he is not capable of succeeding as an MLB manager, and McCatty seems to have done very little, if anything, to stabilize / improve / proficiently manage our pitching.

For Riggleman, all you need to look at is the baserunning mistakes and the mental errors. We've got to lead the league in both of these areas. This is something that an MLB manager, (or a high school coach) should be able to manage and minimize. Riggleman can't or won't. For this alone he should be held accountable.
(Leave aside the bizzare lineups and double switches and Guzman and Desmond and Alberto in RF, plus "managing" the team with the most errors in MLB)
And I believe he will be held accountable, but not until the end of the season.

The only positive thing McCatty seems to have done is stay away from Strasburg.

As of July 11, 2009 the Nats were 26 - 60. (.302)
So, if you want to look at it and say "hey, we're now 39 - 49" (.443) that's fine, the improvement over last year is obvious.

However, another, and perhaps more accurate way of looking at it is to say we made the improvements to our .302 team in mid-season last year. We finished 2009 at 59 - 103 (.364), and to do that, we closed out 2009 with a 33 - 43 record (.434).

So, the way I see it, last year we took a .302 team and during the 2009 season we improved it to .434 team. We finished 2009 with a team capable of playing .434 ball.

In 2010, we've just held steady, barely improved at all, playing at .443.

(FYI, standings for nearly any date in the past at http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/standings/?tcid=nav_mlb_standings )

Here we go with the old "manager is too soft/doesn't teach enough" chestnut. Remember when that was Acta and everyone welcomed the more grizzled/hands on Riggs?

The facts are pretty simple, the Lerners have provided us with the 23rd 'highest' payroll and we're now 24th in wins/losses. Sounds about right. Until we get better personnel to replace the likes of Stammen/Martin/Atilano/Walker/Harris/Morgan/Maxwell/Kennedy - losing will continue.

batlova1: my wife agrees with you that i need counseling, however not about the Nat's (LOL!)i'm just fustrated if i can see that Clippard is the wrong choice as a reliever based on his recent struggles then what is Riggleman thinking?Sunderland hit the nail on the head this team isn't any better fundamentally speaking then it was under Manny,yes they are better, record wise but they should be closer to.500 or a game or two over. The one thing that get's me is that they continue to run the same pitcher's through the revolving door, they go to Syracuse and they don't seem to learn anything yet Sharon Martis can't get another shot even though he certainly can't be any worse than what we've seen this year from our starters. I can only hope Mike Rizzo is not asleep at the wheel concerning this manager and his coaching staff.

Sunderland, yeah, I'm aware of the various sites and other places (such as the media guide for last year, which I have a copy of) where one can find day-by-day standings. That's how I came up with my numbers. But thanks for the link. :-)

kev29, yeah, it's funny how that works. I've always been ambivalent about him, but to hear some tell it, Riggsy was the answer, and earlier in the season he was managing the h.e. double hockey sticks out of the team. Now he's apparently a clueless clown. Go figure. But I'm sure that a managerial change would solve everything. Riiiight...

@dargregmag - I don't understand the line about not seeing the Nats getting better starters? Didn't you read Boswell's article. We've got 4-5 starting pitchers coming on line in the next month. Blaming McCatty for not getting much out of Atilano, Stammen, Martin, Lannan, et.al. isn't fair. See how he does with Strasburg, Zimmerman, Detwiler, Marquis.

My take on it is a lot like Sunderland's. We're basically a .430-.440 club: what made the first half of 2009 so annoying for me was that, under Acta's catatonic leadership, the .430-.440 club played like a .302 one. IMO, Rigs has gotten the club to play broadly up to its potential. Of course, like most fans, I disagree with his decisions frequently, especially with his fixation on Morgan as an indispensable part of the lineup and his aversion to giving Morse PT. But how much better could the Nats perform with this personnel, even if Rigs were John McGraw? Kev29 provided a very long of very marginal players on the roster, most of whom probably shouldn't be in the bigs, starting with our #3-#5 starters. (And he didn't even include Nieves.) No way can we hope to compete with ATL, New York, and Phil with this talent.
I'm expecting about 70 wins this year, and I'm not expecting any cavalry charge of starting pitchers, except maybe JZimm in Sept., who'd effectively take Stras's place in the rotation.

Some really good and interesting posts.(lots less hatred and more frustration and logic) I hear and feel the frustration. I think I am in the camp that this team is just not that good BUT surely could have a better record. I was hoping for 75 wins at the start of the year and they still could reach that. Nice to see Morse starting two days in a row. I really agree with D&D about the leadoff role & flores has me thinking he will never be back. I thought Pudge playing 40% of the games would be great but not sure how his 2nd half will play out. Nieves certainly isn't the answer. For a team that has all this pitching it seems we only really have a shot in 2 out of every 5 games.